Pittsburgh… Not Good Times
When the ACC decided to add Pittsburgh and Syracuse, a logical thought pattern might have been that adding two perennially good basketball teams with strong football tradition was a no-brainer. A couple of teams that are used to having top 4 seeds in March. What would not have been logical, however, was to expect that the ACC was adding a team that would be 11-6 at this point in the season. But that is exactly what Pittsburgh is at this point of 2011-2012. These are not good times in Pittsburgh.
To be sure, 11-6 is hardly a start that gets coaches fired. But it goes deeper than the numbers. You have to look at who Pittsburgh has lost to this year and where they have played.
Last night, Wednesday, Pittsburgh lost to Rutgers…at home… 63-39. That’s a MAC football score, not a basketball score. That’s Rutgers, not UConn.
Most problematic is that this was not a fluke, but a trend. On November 16, Pitt allowed good, but hardly great, Long Beach State to overcome the vaunted Pitt home court advantage. But Pitt put everyone at ease by winning 9 straight. That streak ended when Wagner defeated Pitt at home. As CBS reported after that game:
Pitt has been nearly unbeatable in nonconference games since the Petersen Events Center opened in 2002. The Panthers had lost just one non-Big East game in the arena’s first nine seasons. Now they have dropped two in the span of five weeks.
So there were concerns heading into Big East play. But Pittsburgh’s opening four games could not have been less intimidating. First, conference play opened up at Notre Dame–a team playing without its best player, Tim Abromaitis. Pitt then got to host Cincinnati without its best player, Yancy Gates, who was suspended. Pitt then got to travel back to Chicagoland to play hapless DePaul. Finally, Pitt was scheduled to host Rutgers, a team that has been better than DePaul, but not by much. In most years, that is 4-0. This year? 0-4. Yep, Pitt has lost all four of those games, including last night’s blowout.
Thus, while Pitt is 11-6, they have not even hit the meat of the conference schedule yet. And it is right around the corner with a two-game road trip to #22 Marquette and #1 Syracuse.
Again, these are not good times.
The Confidential 